It must be remembered that there were Samaritans scattered all
over the Roman world in the 1st century of our era. Only recently
have historians begun to realize just how extensive the Samaritan population
was in central Palestine, but also in Phoenicia, Egypt, Arabia, North Africa,
Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, and even in Rome and throughout Italy. At first,
many Romans when coming in contact with these Samaritans simply thought them
to be a Jewish sect and often they were classified as Jews on that account.
Indeed, some early fathers of the Christian community continued to confuse the
Samaritans with Jews from the third to the early fifth centuries (I will show
this in a moment). After all, the Samaritans carried with them wherever they
went their doctrines and religious symbols which were in many basic cases the
same as the Jews.

As for the population of the Samaritans, recent studies
suggest that there were as many as half a million Samaritans in central
Palestine in the 1st century and about three times that many in the
other areas of the Roman Empire and other areas mentioned above (Alan, Crown,
The Samaritans [Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1989], p. 201). Two million
Samaritans in the 1st century represented a large group of people
to the Romans and they would have been politically important to the government
of Rome as well as to their neighbors who lived near them or among them.

What happened to that population of Samaritans which numbered
up to two million people in the time of the apostles and for the next six
hundred years that followed? This is one of the things I hope to show in the
remainder of this book. This vast number of people have simply disappeared
from history. That is, they have vanished as far as being denominated as
"Samaritans."

Today the number of identifiable Samaritans is drastically
reduced to a small community (about 600) still living in two locations in
Israel in Nablus and near Tel Aviv (some in Nablus I have come to know
personally during the many times I have been to the area). They have told me
that they have early records of their forefathers showing at one time that
there were Samaritans all over Europe as well as Egypt, North Africa and even
India. They once represented a large population of the Roman world and they
became influential among the Romans.

This dispersion of Samaritan peoples to many areas of Europe
(and even Asia) has been known by the remnant Samaritans who still live in
Palestine. As long ago as 1865, Robert Mimpriss in his Gospel Treasury,
Expository Harmony of the Four Evangelists (New York: M. W. Dodd, 1868),
stated:

"In ages past we find them[the Samaritans]
inhabiting various cities in Palestine, and extending even to Constantinople.
There was a tradition among them that large numbers of their brethren were
dwelling in various parts of the world ― in England, France, India, and
elsewhere and they have written concerning them from time to time, in the hope
of becoming acquainted with these their brethren.”

 p.545

The evidence in the 20th century for a large
Samaritan dispersion has become certain. In the new book referred to above
(Alan Crown, ed., The Samaritans [Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr] 1989), we have
some following quotes and observations,

"Egypt and Phoenicia, North Africa,
Greece and even Rome, all offered refuge or homes for Samaritans as well
as for Jews. ... Observers made little distinction between Samaritans and
Jews."

• p.201

"Samaritans appear to have been located in every major
coastal city of Palestine, and we find them in Italy and throughout Asia
Minor."

• p.207

"We are aware that early in the Byzantine period Jamnia,
once the seat of the Sanhedrin,, was almost entirely Samaritan.

[There were]
dense settlements in small farming villages across the Sharon, Shephelah
and into the hill country of Samaria."

• pp.59–60

"Samaritan troops seemed to have served in the Roman
armies and may have settled overseas even at the frontiers of the Roman
Empire."

• p.209

"At Thessalonica, the

[Samaritan]
community was sufficiently large to have maintained a synagogue, one
portion of which was named ‘the Tower of the Samaritans’."

• p.211

"Before the coming of the Moslems the Mediterranean basin
was virtually ringed by Samaritan settlers, some as free men including
merchants, officials, artisans and colonists, and others as slaves,
including, apparently, a large number of mine workers."

• p.212

"In the Mediterranean basin, the Samaritan Diaspora was
lost to sight for ever soon after the Moslem conquest, with the single
exception of a Samaritan refugee at Trieste in the eighteenth century."

• p.213

In summation: Crown states that there were Samaritans,

in Delos in the 2nd century B.C.E. (p.202),

in Thasos at the same time (p.202),

in Rhodes, Athens and the Greek islands (p.202).

Sicily in the 1st century had Samaritans
which had a community that lasted until the time of Gregory the Great in
the 6th century (p.202).

There were many in Egypt (p.203).

At least a third of the population of Caesarea in
Palestine in the 1st century was Samaritan (p.206),

and the same amount was there in the early Byzantine

period (p.208)

and, importantly, there were Samaritan synagogues spread
over the whole of the Samaritan diaspora (p.207).

There are three major factors that must be understood by
historians of the Samaritan people.

Firstly, that from the 1st century to the 6th
century of our era there were at least two million Samaritans in various parts
of the Mediterranean basin.

Secondly, in many cases the Samaritans were confused with
the Jews as far as the Romans and others were concerned because the Samaritans
used many of the same symbols that the Jews used in identifying themselves.
Some examples of this confusion between Jews and Samaritans are found in the
quotes from early Christian scholars. In the early 3rd century
Hippolytus said the Sadducean branch of the Jews still existed but they were
now residing in Samaria. He said,
"This sect had its stronghold
especially in the region of Samaria"
(Refutation of All Heresies, IX.24). Origen (Celsus I.49) and
even Jerome (Comm. on Matthew 22:31–33) thought the Samaritans were a
Sadducean sect of the Jews. Epiphanius in the 4th century also
confused Samaritans with Jews. M’Clintock & Strong’s Cyclopaedia,
states:

"Epiphanius

(Against Heresies, Book One)
considers them to be the chief and most dangerous adversaries of
Christianity, and he enumerates the several sects into which they had by
that time divided themselves. They were popularly, and even by some of the
fathers, confounded with the Jews, insomuch that a legal
interpretation of the Gospel was described as a tendency to
Samaritanize or to be Judaistic."

• vol.IX, p.287

[bold lettering mine]

And even some of the Jewish authorities in the Talmud accepted
some Samaritans as proselytes though in most cases it was recognized that they
were basically heathens (Kiddushin 75b, 76a).

Thirdly, these Samaritans throughout the Empire (like the
Jews) were accustomed to meet in synagogues and to use burial grounds
that other eastern peoples used (including the Jews). Recall that the
followers of Simon Magus and his successors (who became identified with the
Gnostics) were also meeting in synagogues.

It should be noted that just because the ruins of a synagogue
are found that goes back to the period from the first to the sixth centuries,
it is precarious business to assume that it is always Jewish. Reinhard Plummer
(in Crown, ed., The Samaritans) makes the proper observation that the
few remains from synagogues in Lower Galilee do not necessarily mean that the
synagogues were Jewish. He suggests that in some cases they may be Samaritan
even when the square script of the Hebrew letters is used (p.156).

There is no proof whatever that the Samaritans always used the
ancient script while the Jewish authorities always used the square script from
the time of Ezra (5th century B.C.E.) onward. In fact, with the
Jews the opposite is the case. Jewish coins from the Maccabean period, those
at the time of the first revolt and even those coins minted at the time of the
second (and final) revolt in C.E. 132–135 were inscribed with the ancient
script. Some writings from the Dead Sea area also were written in the earlier
script. In Jerusalem in a burial cave at Giv’at ha-Mivtar is a Herodian period
inscription in the ancient letters written by a Jew who had just buried his
friend (see Joseph Naveh, Early History of the Alphabet, pp.120–121).

All of this shows that there remained a penchant among Jews to
use the older script alongside the square script. And while the Samaritans
seemingly continued to use the old script for making manuscripts of the Torah,
there is every reason to believe that they often resorted to the square script
in other literary environments such as on tombs and dedicatory inscriptions
(S. Safrai, Samaritan Synagogues in the Romano-Byzantine Period,
Cathedra 4, p.86, Hebrew).

And speaking of tombs or cemeteries, just because there are
found inscriptions or carvings that suggest biblical themes from the Old
Testament, this is no guarantee whatever that the tombs and cemeteries are to
be reckoned as exclusively belonging to Jews within mainline Rabbinic
fellowship. In many areas the identification of certain cemeteries as being
Jewish (or Samaritan, etc.) is often based on literary sources that mention
Jews or others as living in the region. This is fine, but in the region of
Lower and Upper Galilee, the literary sources are not sufficient to properly
identify either synagogue remains or cemeteries. Galilee was a pluralistic
society. As Professor Crown reminds us, in the area of Scythopolis/Beth Shean
where some of the synagogues of which we have been speaking are located, there
was an important Samaritan population, as well as in Sepphoris in Upper
Galilee and in the Decapolis (The Samaritans, p.60).

In such pluralistic societies it was common for all religious
groups to use in many of their inscriptions the normal languages spoken by the
ordinary people. Thus, we find Greek and Aramaic writings in the synagogues
and we should equally expect such inscriptions in burial grounds and
commercial buildings and homes. Artifacts and religious objects would also be
inscribed with the normal speech of the community. And this is what is found.
Goodenough found such inscriptions all around the Mediterranean area and if
they showed any "Jewish" types of symbols or had what he considered "Jewish"
names or themes, he would most often classify them as "Jewish." This is
understandable, but with what I am presenting in this research, we need to be
careful in such identifications.

And let us not forget that there was a large Samaritan
population in Galilee and they also had an extensive diaspora which was
scattered over the Roman Empire. These Samaritans were often mistaken as a
Jewish sect. It is this continual confusion between the two peoples
that is important in our present study. The confusion even extended to
racial appearances. When the Jerusalem Jews were upset with the teachings of
Jesus, they looked him over and said,
"Say we not well that thou
art a Samaritan" (John 8:48). Now
Jesus was clearly Jewish and reckoned to be from the House of David, but the
Jewish authorities felt it proper to call him a Samaritan. Had the two peoples
looked dissimilar to one another in physical appearance, they would not have
been able to make such a comparison of Jesus. The simple truth is, the Jews
and Samaritans at large often resembled one another in physical appearance.
This was another reason for the confusion between the two peoples.

What we need to ask, however, is what happened to this large
group of people called the Samaritans who seemingly (by the 7th
century) disappeared from the face of the earth? This is what we need to look
at in this historical survey. When we do, and believe what the evidence
reveals, we will realize that the Samaritans are The People That History
Forgot.